When I started backpacking, the only technology I took with me was a camera. It was a Pentax MX manual SLR camera with a few rolls of Kodak slide film. My inspiration was Galen Rowell and I studied his amazing photos of the high sierra with great admiration. Every year I take a camera with plans to take amazing pictures of the high sierra. I have yet to come home with pictures that match my memory of the mountains.



Last year I took a camera, video camera, GPS, a notepad, mp3 player, voice recorder, flashlight, and a deck of cards...all functions included on my cellphone. I only used the phone on Bear Ridge, just south of Edison Lake and on the summit of Mt. Whitney.

I have hiked with and without music and I'm thinking of hiking without music this year. My thought right now is limit the technology to a camera and try once again to capture that magic moment in the "range of light."